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Lando360 posted:Hey I was wondering what everyone's work format is like? Like what you do to get ready, where you write, how you form ideas and structure and things like that. My advice is, if you haven't written something like a screenplay before, just do it. Accept that it may not make sense or come out consistent or even readable. But if force your way through it, the books and screenwriter discussions online will make a lot more sense. And when you get into the mindset of "this is a practice screenplay," you'll loosen up, and come up with lots of ideas you can reuse later. The screenwriting books and theories about structure are all important to get you from an initial idea to a polished interesting screenplay. But they'll make so much more sense once you run up into the problems that those books are trying to help solve.
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Nov 22, 2010 21:45
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Golden Bee posted:Synopsis: A thwarted heist leads a group of thieves on a hunt to regain their stolen goods, but an odd choice emerges: sex or success? I'd say that you should work a quick description of your main character in there, rather than leaving it at "group of thieves." And the ending still seems like you're playing coy. The synopsis/logline is supposed to capture everything important (story, main character, tone) as briefly as you can. It's not a poster tagline, which is supposed to pique interest without giving the plot away.
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Nov 29, 2010 23:32
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Yeah. I'd like to be a #1 type writer too, and I can do it for a week or two before I drop the ball. Here's my issue: if I don't write every day, I lose my train of thought. I can't just pick it up and go, I need to read and reread what I have, review my notes, try to remember what I was excited about in the first place. If I have a few hours in front of me, that's OK. But if I'm trying to sandwich in an hour of writing before I have to go to work, it's not going to happen.
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Dec 8, 2010 04:11
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York_M_Chan posted:In my opinion, this is the worst thing that a writer can do. Basically, because your audience wasn't there when you met "Sonny" and we weren't in your mindset. Usually, what I do, is use the dialogue that inspired the scene as a stepping off point to frame the character and end up cutting it around the 3rd draft and replacing it with dialogue more conducive to the theme. Yup. In fact, whatever line/scene/moment originally inspired me to write something usually ends up cut the first time I read it through. York_M_Chan posted:I have the same feeling about guy who think their friends are really funny and decides to make the film where they "just turn the camera on and let my friends go." Apparently Kanye West tried to make his own version of Curb Your Enthusiasm that was basically this. I hear it's spectacularly bad.
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Dec 13, 2010 18:32
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I took a class at UCLA extension. It was OK, but it was basically a writers group, and I'm not sure it was worth the money.
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Dec 15, 2010 18:28
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modern villian posted:I just recently finished a screenplay I've been working on for the past year, and would love to hear what a few goons have to say about it. I'll e-mail it to anyone who is interested. I like ghosts. Shoot an email to my username at gmail.
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Dec 24, 2010 23:02
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I sometimes like writing exercise scenes with my characters, separate from the story. Doing scenes from the characters past lets me free associate without worrying about it, and helps nail down the voices and attitudes and backstory. I don't do that nearly enough, in fact.
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Jan 16, 2011 03:34
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I don't like his whole approach. He's posted about how proud he was of his changes to the Willy Wonk character - he added the backstory that Willy Wonka's father was a dentist, and that's why Willy Wonka blah blah blah.
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Mar 3, 2011 06:35
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Have you read it yet? Often, scenes that seemed strong and dramatic in the moment of writing will turn out to be rushed and thin when you look at the actual words on the page. This happens to me most with scenes I was excited to write - it's easy to focus on the brief payoff, and not enough on the setup.
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Mar 18, 2011 17:54
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Songs are huge for me. I don't actually put the songs in the screenplay, but I definitely set stuff to music in my head, and mark which songs I used in my notes. It's perfect when rewriting time comes around - I can put on that song, and all my hopes and plans for the scene come right back.
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Mar 20, 2011 23:34
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Yeah, I've always heard "don't do it... unless you really, really want to."
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Apr 8, 2011 03:34
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Your logline is supposed to have the main character's mission in it too - trying to get home, I'm guessing? I hate writing loglines, and I also think that they are pretty far removed from how viewers think of stories. I think screenwriters tend to focus way too much on plot, and don't step back to think about how the movie as a whole will be seen. Ask a screenwriter to describe a movie, and they'll give you a logline. Ask anyone else, and they'll say "it's a funny action movie with great car chases" or "it really captures that small town vibe."
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Apr 21, 2011 18:23
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Yeah, I think (O.S.) implies that the dialogue is audible to the other characters in the scene, and (V.O.) implies that it's not, whether it's overlapping dialogue from another scene, or a narration, or something else.
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Jun 20, 2011 22:04
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Not all of the description has to be physical action. It's OK to use a little bit of metaphor and simile in your descriptions, too. Just don't overdo it. Like, the explanation you gave in your post gave a better sense of the feeling you were going for than the writing. You could include something like this: Sporadic posted:She is on the outside, away from the fun and joy. Almost like a ghost. in your screenplay, and it would help illustrate the mood you're going for.
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Jun 29, 2011 22:28
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I love having lists like that. Lists of macguffins, lists of jobs, lists of names, lists of locations. When I was writing a story that involved cops, I wrote up a list of a hundred items that cops would own or come across at work. It turned out to be the greatest writing tool I had for that project. And whenever I was struggling, I would look over the lists and add to them, and suddenly I had ideas again.
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Sep 21, 2011 17:36
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I recommend taking it out everyone once in a while, looking at how thick it is, and saying to yourself, "at least I filled it all up with words. I sure did write it!" That's what I do with my college novel.
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Nov 4, 2011 02:39
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It's a pretty good book, and unlike a lot of these books, the author is forthright about what his approach is good for (basic stories about a hero facing obstacles) and what it isn't (stories with lots of interlocking subplots). It's pretty dry, though - he writes about things very abstractly, and doesn't offer a lot of examples or thorough explanations. It's nice that it's not padded, but it's sometimes a little too spare.
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Nov 12, 2011 20:38
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If you have connections, don't cash them in unless you're really confident in your writing. If it's your first full-length script, you might want to get a few under your belt before you start asking for favors.
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Dec 4, 2011 23:10
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Back to work on my Cop Rock spec.
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Dec 5, 2011 16:50
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That Dan Harmon piece is a great primer. It's nice to read something nice and short. And Dab Harmon backs it up on community, which is a great mix of odd ambitious ideas told in an entertaining way.
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Dec 27, 2011 20:58
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Save The Cat is fascinating, as it lays out the formula of lots of lovely 80s and 90s movie. It won't necessarily help you write good movies though.
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Jan 24, 2013 04:05
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